


And Sent Him Down the Sky

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-17
Updated: 2007-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: Season 2/3 AU. In which Dean never gives up, Bobby has a pig!hat, and there is much angst.
Kudos: 2





	And Sent Him Down the Sky

When Dean Winchester pulls up at Bobby’s, he’s spattered with mud, grime ground into his skin, his hair, his clothes, darker down the side of his face where it’s mixed with blood. “I’ve found Sam,” he says, and Bobby waits, but there’s no taller shadow, no second figure as filthy as the first, no-one but Dean and the car that never gives up even when everybody else has.  
  
“Well?” says Bobby, because he’s got no patience for guessing games, but then he sees the light in Dean’s eyes and he doesn’t have to guess any more. “Dean,” he says, but Dean’s grinning, broad, like he used to, and the car door creaks. Bobby starts down the steps, some half-assed idea that somehow he can--   
  
And Dean’s gone, nothing left but the sputtering roar of an engine dying on the breeze. Bobby pushes his hat back to scratch his head, and knows that even if he could overtake him, there’s no catching Dean Winchester now.  
  
\----  
  
The first time, Bobby answers the phone on the thirty-first ring because he can’t stand the noise any longer. Jim’s been at him to get one of those new-fangled answer machines, but Bobby figures if anyone really wants to talk to him, they can call back or make the damn trip up to South Dakota. Of course, they can also ring thirty-one times.  
  
“What?” he snaps, so forceful that Rumsfeld whines in the corner, and he figures he’s scared the shit out of whoever’s on the other end. Bobby knows he isn’t the most approachable of men, and he’s not exactly itching to set that problem to rights.  
  
There’s a pause on the other end, and Bobby figures maybe it’s one of those damn telephone salesman, probably pissing his pants. Then a voice speaks, low and rough, and Bobby feels something twist in his gut.  
  
“It’s Sam,” says the voice. “He left, Bobby. He left us.”  
  
Bobby swallows and thinks that he’s been expecting this call for longer than he cares to remember. “Where’d he go?” he asks.  
  
“Some stupid – fucking. Stanford, Bobby, Jesus. He went to fucking Stanford.”   
  
Bobby sits down and feels a pang of pride. _Stanford_. “He’ll come back,” he says. “When he’s done, he’ll be back, Dean.”  
  
There’s another pause, longer, then Dean says, “Dad told him not to.”  
  
Bobby snorts. “Since when did that boy ever do anything your daddy told him to?”  
  
There’s a huff of laughter on the line, and Bobby thinks _Stanford_ and knows that even if you could overtake him, there’s no catching Sam Winchester now.  
  
\----  
  
Ellen’s funeral is a quiet affair. It’s not that she didn’t know people – Christ, she had the best network of them all, every hunter in the contiguous US under her roof at some point in their lives, and none of them went away sober, either – but after the Roadhouse went up in oh-seven, and half the hunting community with it, she pulled back, pulled away. Jo’s there, of course, white-faced and dry-eyed, and Dean, looking like he’s been sleeping in his car for the last ten years, but still _Dean_ underneath it all. They don’t bother with a crematorium – can’t trust civilians to burn people right. Ellen’s laid out on a pyre, eyes closed, hands at her sides like she’s ready for action if need be, and Bobby thinks that's the way it should be.  
  
Jo stays, watching the flames dancing as the sky darkens, but Dean strides away, and Bobby barely catches up with him, joints aching like they always do these days.  
  
“Hey,” he says, and Dean turns, raises his eyebrows. Bobby hasn’t seen him in over a year, but dusk’s drawing on and his face is in shadow.  
  
“Bobby,” he says, even, like Bobby’s his next-door neighbour who he sees at church every Sunday.  
  
“You doing OK?” Bobby asks. “Still hunting?”  
  
Dean lets out a puff of air that might be a laugh. “So they tell me,” he says, then shrugs. “Getting old.”  
  
Bobby snorts. “Come back in thirty years and tell me about _old_ ,” he says. He pushes his hat back to scratch his head. “You ever think about settling down?”  
  
“Can’t,” says Dean. “Still got work to do.”  
  
The demon’s been gone fifteen years, but Bobby knows that’s not what Dean means. He opens his mouth, though Christ knows what he’s planning to say, never could come up with a way of making damn Winchesters see sense, but Dean raises his hand.  
  
“I got work to do, Bobby,” he says. “Good seeing you, though.”  
  
Bobby blinks, and Dean is gone, a darker shape in the pooling twilight, striding away from the fire.  
  
\----  
  
The second time, Bobby’s cursing and wiping his hands on an oily rag, and the phone’s right there, so he picks it up without thinking, feeling blood and grease slip against the plastic of the receiver. “Make it quick,” he says. “Sliced my damn hand up, here.”  
  
“It’s Sam,” says Dean, crackly down the line from God knows where, and Bobby hears the edge in his voice and closes his fist, because blood looks dramatic but there are things that hurt worse.  
  
“He hurt?” Bobby asks, and catches himself holding his breath.  
  
“He’s--” Dean sounds exhausted, angry; he sounds terrified. “I told him something, Bobby, something--. I shouldn’t’ve – God.”   
  
“Hurt or dead, Dean?” Bobby asks, because he knows from the fact that Dean’s still together enough to phone that Sam ain’t dead, and Dean needs a shock, needs something to knock him off the path he’s heading on right now, winding up towards stupid fear.  
  
“D--” says Dean, then, “Jesus, no, he’s gone. He ran off. I think,” Bobby hears him take a deep breath. “I think he went to look for the demon.”  
  
Bobby nods, pushes his hat back to scratch his head. Hurt, he can deal with, long as it’s not too bad; gone, though, gone is-- “He’ll come back,” he says. “When he’s done, he’ll be back, Dean.”   
  
Dean breathes through his teeth, and Bobby can hear that he’s not sure, doesn’t believe in _SamandDean_ the way Bobby does. Bobby’s watched those boys almost all their lives, though, and Dean always was slow on the uptake when it came to people.  
  
“What if--” says Dean, and Bobby remembers a kid who never asked for reassurance, and hears _what if he gets hurt_ and _what if he gets killed_ and _what if he just doesn’t want to come back_.  
  
“Kid needs his space, Dean, same as he always has,” he says, and squeezes his fist tighter, watches the blood drip between his fingers. “He ain’t stupid.” And that’s God’s honest truth, but brains ain’t got nothing to do with acting smart where Winchesters are concerned.  
  
“OK,” says Dean. “OK. You’ll tell me if you hear anything, though, right? We were in Oregon, but he could be anywhere by now.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Bobby, and he will, but he knows that if there’s anyone who can catch Sam Winchester now, it’s his brother.  
  
\----  
  
Dean’s getting a reputation for putting down cases faster than anyone. He’s always been smart, but now he’s ruthless, brutal, and when he pulls up in Bobby’s yard, hair thick with blood, one side of his face pulled down by a scar that’s never going away, Bobby’s got half a mind to chase him off with a shotgun like he did his daddy fifteen years ago. Bobby’s got a weakness for Winchesters, though, God help him, and he stands back on the porch and lets Dean past.  
  
“You didn’t get that stitched up properly,” he says, nodding at the scar.   
  
Dean shrugs, already making coffee in Bobby’s tiny kitchen. “Didn’t have time.”  
  
Bobby raises his eyebrows. “Well, it’s ugly as sin,” he says. “Could have spared a thought for the folks who have to look at you.”  
  
Dean turns round, mug in hand, and grins, lopsided; the scar cuts across one corner of his mouth, and the grin’s wrong anyway, sharp, no happiness to it. “Like I give a fuck,” he says.  
  
Bobby sighs and sits down. “You’re still looking,” he says. He knows it’s true, knows it from the way reports of Dean come in systematically, state by state, town by town.   
  
Dean leans back against the counter, leather coat creaking against the splintery wood. “Never gonna stop,” he says, and Bobby knows that’s true, too. Dean’s covered the contiguous United States five times in ten years, but he’s a Winchester, and they’re as stubborn as they come.  
  
Bobby feels the rumble of a grief that’s never really been dealt with, because it’s one thing to know, to see it with your eyes, but this, this phantom hope is painful and dangerous and it’s turned Dean Winchester into someone who can never give up, even when everybody else has. “Dean,” he says, and Dean turns away.  
  
“I don’t want to hear it, Bobby,” he says. “I came here for information, not freakin therapy.”  
  
Bobby sets down his own mug and pushes his hat back to scratch his head. He wants to help Dean, and then he can’t help wondering himself, sometimes. “Fine,” he says finally. “What do you want to know?”  
  
\----  
  
The third time, Bobby’s half asleep, dozing in his chair over a book, and the phone scares the bejesus out of him. That’s nothing to how he feels when he picks it up, though.  
  
“It’s Sam,” says Dean, and Bobby thinks _of course_ , because Sam’s been missing for a week and Dean’s calls have been coming in thick and fast, lowering in pitch and rising in fear, and Bobby hasn’t even been able to say _he’ll come back_ , because he doesn’t know why Sam left in the first place.  
  
“Hurt?” he asks, doesn’t want to ask the other half of the question because Dean sounds like he’s falling apart.  
  
“He’s-- Shit, Bobby, he’s got a freakin demon in him,” says Dean, and Bobby feels something twist in his gut, because he’s seen enough possessions to know that even if you get the bastard out, you can never fix it.  
  
“Where?” he asks, and half his mind’s already racing, protective circles and Latin rites and holy water, but the other’s remembering a quiet kid with solemn eyes who used to want to read Bobby’s books before he was big enough to reach them down for himself.  
  
“I think he’s coming your way,” says Dean. “I’m on my way now. Bobby--”   
  
“I know,” says Bobby, and scuffs out the salt line by the door. “We’ll fix it, Dean.”  
  
“I’ll be there in two hours,” says Dean, and Bobby hears the click and feels his hands start to shake.  
  
\----  
  
Bobby’s spent six months looking for Dean when finally he runs into him in a tiny town in Nevada. Dean’s squatting in a shack at the end of a dirt road, desert coming in through the door and thank Christ it’s winter because Bobby’s been to Nevada before and he figures Hell is probably pleasantly cool by comparison. After all, if anyone should know Hell, it’s Bobby: he’s the one helped slam the gates shut seven months ago, demons flying every which way and Dean off finishing his daddy’s quest and no use to anyone. If anyone should know Hell, it’s Bobby, but one look at Dean makes Bobby think he doesn’t know the half of it.  
  
“What do you want?” Dean asks, and Bobby wonders if he’s even remembered to sleep once in the last six months.   
  
“I want you to be less of an idiot,” says Bobby, and Dean chuckles, dry as the sand that's blowing through the cracks in the window frames.  
  
“Not much chance of that,” he says, rubbing his eyes. He looks pale, freckles standing out even in the dimness of the shack. “I ain’t taking jobs right now.”  
  
“I ain’t asking,” says Bobby. “Whyn’t you come up to Dakota with me, take a little down time?”  
  
“Can’t,” says Dean. “I got work to do.” His voice sounds sandpaper-rough, like he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days.  
  
“You can look just as easily up there,” says Bobby. He knows he’s fighting a losing battle though; Dean’s a Winchester, and they’re as stubborn as they come.  
  
“I’m looking here,” says Dean. “Got a system.”  
  
“I can help,” says Bobby, and he’s made the offer before, has been helping, anyway, phone calls and books and tracking anything that looks likely, but he wants more, he wants to keep Dean where he can see him, make sure he doesn’t lose him.  
  
“You can help by staying out of my way,” says Dean, suddenly snapping shut like a lock-box. Bobby frowns, but Dean turns away. “I mean it, Bobby. Just... leave me alone.”  
  
Bobby stays in Nevada for two days, but the next time he goes back to the shack, Dean is gone.  
  
\----  
  
The last time, Bobby’s waiting for the phone, but he’s expecting it to be Ash; the portents have been going crazy the last couple of days, and Bobby doesn’t know what they’re building up to, but it’s something big. “You figure it out yet?” he says into the phone, peering down at the books he’s got spread out in front of him.  
  
“It’s Sam,” says Dean, and Bobby thinks _of course_ , because Sam’s a quiet kid with solemn eyes who used to want to read Bobby’s books before he was big enough to reach them down for himself, but he’s also had something building up around him since he was six months old, and Bobby doesn’t know what it’s building up to, but it’s something big.  
  
“He’s gone,” says Dean, “Something took him, Bobby, I let him go off on his own, God, it was just a _diner_ for Christ’s sake, and something--” He breaks off, and Bobby hears him gulping in air. “Something took him,” he says, and Bobby feels something twist in his gut.  
  
“Where?” he says, and Dean relays the co-ordinates, but if Sam got spirited away by something, he could be anywhere.  
  
“OK,” says Bobby, and wonders how many more times he’ll have to take this phone call, like he’s stuck in some crazy loop. “We’re gonna find him.”  
  
Bobby’s right, too, but not in the way he hopes he is.  
  
\----  
  
Bobby knows that there’s no catching Dean Winchester now, but he’s got to try anyway, wouldn’t be able to look himself in the mirror if he didn’t. The Impala’s tracks are easy to follow, rubber on the road like Dean doesn’t care if the tyres last longer than today. They turn off onto a dirt track two hours south-west of Bobby’s place, and half a mile after that the Impala’s parked in front of a fallen tree that’s half-rotted with age. Bobby knows where he’s going: he’s visited Cold Oak before, a few times, but he can’t figure out what’s going on with Dean.  
  
It’s another mile and a half to the first houses, and Bobby’s not as young as he used to be and older than he ever meant to get. It takes him too long, too long, and he’s going to be too late. Dean’s been hunting a ghost for eighteen years, and Bobby thinks maybe he doesn’t know how to do anything else any more.  
  
The town square is thick with mud, not overgrown even though no-one’s lived in the buildings for a hundred years. The ghosts still walk the streets, keeping them clear, and Dean Winchester’s sitting on his ass in the mud, staring at something on the ground. Bobby fights down the relief that’s so strong it feels almost like nausea, and moves forward to see what it is.  
  
There’s nothing but bones, now, bleached and huge, and rags of clothes fluttering in the breeze. It’s been eighteen years, and this could be anyone, but Dean looks up and says _Sam_ , and Bobby believes him, because he’s watched those boys all their lives, and there’s no-one left now that believes in _SamandDean_ like Bobby does.  
  
“You think he was here this whole time?” he asks, and grief suddenly strikes him hard, a punch to the gut like he’s been waiting for for eighteen years, eighteen years and Sam was right here this whole time, waiting for the mourning that’s rightfully his.  
  
Dean reaches out and touches the black bracelet that’s still wrapped around one wrist. “Should’ve found him sooner,” he says. “Sorry, Sammy. Shouldn’t’ve left you out here all alone.”  
  
Bobby turns away, lets Dean have his private sorrow. Bobby can take his later; he has time. Behind him, he hears Dean make a noise in his throat, and he moves out of earshot.  
  
There are three other skeletons, scattered around the place. Bobby gathers up the bones into a pile and pours salt and gasoline on them. No sense adding to the ghosts stalking this place. Sam, though, Sam gets a pyre. Dean and Bobby spend three hours collecting the wood, and then Dean moves the bones, laying each one in the right place like he doesn’t know they’re going to burn. He lays Sam out with his arms by his sides, and Bobby thinks that’s how it should be.  
  
The pyre burns through the night, the flames finally dying down to embers around dawn; Dean watches the sparks rising, and Bobby stands behind him and lets the sorrow wash over him. Neither of them speaks until there’s nothing left of Sam but a handful of grey ashes and twenty-four years of memories, and then Dean turns.  
  
“I was gonna blow my brains out,” he says, matter-of-fact, like he’s talking about getting take-out or something.  
  
Bobby nods; he knows that, saw it back at his house. “Why didn’t you?”  
  
Dean looks down, shrugs. "Still might," he says, then looks back at the remains of the pyre and smiles, slow and soft; one corner of his mouth won’t turn up, the scar crossing it uglier now than ever. “He’d kick my ass.”  
  
“Not if I got there first,” says Bobby, then sighs, and pushes his hat back to scratch his head. “Whyn’t you come and stay with me for a while, take a little down time?”  
  
Dean looks at the pyre a little longer, then turns back to Bobby. The smile’s gone, now, but he looks younger than he has for years. “OK,” he says. “OK.”  
  
Bobby nods and sighs again. They still have to bury Sam, and he’s not as young as he used to be and older than he ever meant to get, but there’s a bottle of whiskey back at his house and twenty-four years of memories that’ll keep them going long into the night. Bobby thinks maybe there's no catching Dean Winchester now, but he isn’t planning on giving up, even if everybody else has. He may not be a Winchester, but that doesn’t mean he’s not as stubborn as they come.


End file.
